On democracy – From Tahrir to the Netherlands
Today the Netherlands has regional elections. People choose the regional candidates who later will choose the representatives in the Dutch senate. Because of the current coalition that rests on the support of the anti-Islam Freedom Party of Wilders, the government not only lacks a majority in the house of representatives (Tweede Kamer) where it needs the Freedom Party, it also does not have a majority in the Senate where the Freedom Party has no seats yet. The current campaign is therefore dominated not by regional issues but by national themes. This, hopefully could lead to a high turn out rate but I doubt it since the 1995 elections not even half of the population voted in 1999, 2003 and 2007.
The low turn out is remarkable given the struggles in other parts of the world for freedom, civil rights and democracy. In particular Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are exemplary cases of course.
Via Petra Stienen I found the next video on Youtube made by Dikla Zeidler who is a camjo (camera journalist) and (I think) a journalism student together Bahram Sadeghi.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgfbGiH53c]It is interesting to see how the call for democracy has spread all over the Middle East and is now influencing events elsewhere. Usually the narrative is that the West is bringing freedom to the non-West as Maximilian Forte argues in particular in the case of women. While Forte points to the hypocrisy of such ideas against the background of the reported rape and assault on CBS journalist Lara Logan, the Western plea for and attempts to export democracy indeed seem shallow and opportunistic. Not only with regard the outspoken fears of Islamist victories in elections, but also with the low commitment to voting in Western countries. And although the turn out rates are low it appears that politicians such as Wilders who is playing the nativist and anti-Islam card is able to mobilise voters while others aren’t. The political elite wouldn’t be so afraid for the Freedom Party if it weren’t for his succes among the men and women on the streets. The same political elite that is troubled by the prospect that the ‘Arab street’ will vote for an islamist movement that is antagonistic towards the West and Israel. Tahrir took the message of hope from Tunisia and spread it further into the Middle East and even to Wisconsin in the United States. The West being influenced by movements in the Middle East makes clear that, as Lisa Wade wrote at Sociological Images, ‘a hierarchical “West and the rest” binary‘ does not adequately describe and explain reality (although the title of her post, Egypt supports Wisconsin, is a little too much I think). Let’s hope the Dutch take up the commitment to freedom and democracy of the Tunisian and Egyptian protesters and go to vote today.
